Tax Deadline Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the East Hampton Town deadline for payment of the first half of 2013-14 property taxes. The second half is due by May 31.

Taxes may be paid at the office of the town tax receiver at 300 Pantigo Place in East Hampton or by phone or online using a credit card at officialpayments.com and the jurisdiction code 4216.

Although it is unclear whether last year’s history is repeating itself — numerous residents never received their tax bills — several complaints have been received about missing bills this year. Town staffers were trying this week to determine if the problem went beyond the normal number of bills that are returned each year as undeliverable, due to address errors or the like.

East Hampton’s budget officer, Len Bernard, said this week that, though property owners are required to pay taxes on time regardless of whether or not the town has issued a bill, in cases where the town tax assessors had failed to print out a property tax bill, town officials would ask the county, which assesses fees for late taxes, to waive those fees.

Mr. Bernard said the tax bills were printed out and hand-delivered to a company hired by the town to process and prepare them for mailing. They were mailed from the East Hampton Post Office on Dec. 13. Some tax bills, particularly those going to the owners of multiple properties — about 4,000, Mr. Bernard said — were processed by the assessors office itself.

The town must wait until the county adopts the tax warrant for all municipalities, at the first meeting of the Suffolk Legislature in December, before beginning to prepare East Hampton tax bills. After a lengthy process of checking to make sure the tax bills will equal the amount of the town’s tax warrant, the bills are printed out over the course of several days.

Tomorrow is also the deadline to pay property taxes in Southampton Town. First-half taxes can be paid at the Office of the Tax Receiver at Town Hall at 116 Hampton Road in Southampton Village. Payments may also be made online at the town website, www.southamptontownny.gov.